Today's SONET transport networks allow erroneous data to propagate through the network prior to the detection of the faults causing the errors and prior to the completion of the fault recovery action. In typical SONET networks, the erroneous data due to faults may propagate through the network for as long as 60 ms. SONET “facility protection mechanisms” include both line level protection schemes (e.g., Linear APS, BLSR) and path (payload) protection schemes (e.g., UPSR). However, these schemes can allow erroneous data to propagate through the network until the detection and recovery processes have completed.